Buying a graphics card in 2024 can be a bit overwhelming. Especially considering all the different price ranges and all the different cards and features. Also considering some of the best cards on the market right now are priced at around $3000, you’re probably not sure if a cheaper card is going to be any good. This, however, all depends on what you’re planning to do and how long you want the card to work for. If you are looking for just an answer than in my personal experience the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is a good place to start.
Use Cases
There are many different reasons people need a dedicated graphics card. From gaming, to graphic design all tasks require some level of graphics processing. If your planning on just streaming content and browsing the web and playing some lightweight games, I would look around for an older AMD card as NVIDIA cards, while prices are high, are geared more to gaming and do cost quite a bit more. While more intense tasks such as gaming and video editing, will require a more recent graphics card costing quite a bit more.
Should You Get an AMD or NVIDIA Graphics Card?
Now this completely depends on the preferences of the user. Both cards are really good, but both have their pros and cons. While AMD is cheaper, and does not have as many features and ray tracing performance is behind when compared to NVIDIA’s implementation, it does offer faster rasterization performance when compared to nvidia cards.
However, NVIDIA cards, while more expensive and have slower rasterization when compared to AMD, have much more features and much faster ray tracing implementations. NVIDIA also sports a really cool feature known as DLSS. DLSS is a sort of AI upscaler, boosting in game FPS by much more than what AMD cards can achieve. It also looks much better when compared to AMD’s FSR upscaling feature.
Release Dates
When buying a graphics card, it is important to know when it was released. Buying a graphics card that is about to receive slowed updates or no updates at all is NOT recommended. Instead check that your card was released no later than 4 years ago to assure that you will get the most out of your card. But do keep in mind, the older the card the slower and less efficient it will be. To see a NVIDIA graphics cards support list, please go to the following website: https://endoflife.date/nvidia-gpu.
Specs
There are several factors of a graphics card that you need to consider before purchasing. Some of those factors include, cores, clock speed, VRAM, VRAM type, memory bus width, TDP.
- Cores: A card with more than 2500 CUDA cores is almost essential in 2024. The more cores you have the more data your graphics card will be able to process in a certain amount of time, improving your framerates in game, or improving the compiling times of your projects.
- Clock speed: Now just because a graphics card has a lot of CUDA cores does not mean it will be faster than a card with fewer CUDA cores. Clock speed of those CUDA cores is also a huge factor to consider. Clock speed essentially will determine how fast that data can be processed in a certain amount of time.
- VRAM: This stands for Video Random Access Memory. This is what will hold the textures and other graphical aspects of your video games. There are many different size options out there for VRAM but the least amount of VRAM your should have on a graphics card in 2024, based off of how much vram modern games use, is 8 GB. Anything below 8 GB will just lead to a overall diminished experience for you and you will end up wishing that you never purchased the card. If you have the money to spend ($600+) go for a newer card with 12 GB or even more. There are also many kinds of vram. The older and slower version is GDDR5. This is usually used on cards with small amounts of VRAM. Go for a card with at least GDDR6 to ensure that your card will keep up in the future. The higher the numbers the faster the VRAM will be.
- Memory Bus Width: This is also important when it comes to performance. If you have large amounts of VRAM that’s rated to run really fast but have a smaller bus width, you won’t get the best performance from the card. Think of it like this, if a large group of people are running really fast through a double door but only enough for 2-3 people at a time, they won’t all fit and it will take a minute for them to pass through. Same thing for computers, if you are trying to pass lots of data through small memory busses, it won’t all fit and it will take a minute. Try to go for something with 192-bits or higher.
- TDP: Thermal design power is another important factor when buying a graphics card. It tells you the wattage the card was designed for. This can range widely depending on the tasks at hand. Usually gaming or video editing will have higher TDP’s such as 100-500. Watching videos on the other hand will usually use around 100 watts. If your planning on doing a custom water cooled pc, make sure that when your buying a waterblock for your graphics card, if your doing that, that it can handle the TDP of your graphics card.
Where Should I Buy A Graphics Card From
While there are many places to choose from when buying a graphics card. You should consider when you need the card, how much you’re willing to spend, and what kinds of deals other stores offer. Sometimes buying a graphics card can cost $350 on one website while another website could be on sale for $280. You also really want to only buy one from a reputable site such as Newegg or even Micro Center.
Other Things To Consider
While all of the factors I already talked about are the main things you want to look for in a graphics card, there are a few things that really come down to personal preference. Here’s a few more things to look out for:
- Ports: Decide how many video output ports you need your graphics card to have. Most modern cards can have 3+. Also consider the type of the video outputs such as DisplayPort or HDMI.
- Size: Make sure when buying a graphics card that it fits inside your computer. It would really suck if it didn’t.
- Cooling: Make sure when buying a graphics card that it has sufficient cooling or else you may run into overheating issues.
- Style: When buying a graphics card, there are many different designs to choose from. From many different colors, to different looks and RGB, find one that fits your aesthetic and preference.
Final Thoughts On Buying a Graphics Card
While there are certain things you want to look out for when buying a graphics card in 2024, it really all comes down to personal preference and what you want. You don’t have to spend $3000 on a new piece of hardware just to regret it a month later. Spend what you are comfortable spending and on what fits your needs.
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